Friday, 8 April 2011

Q8) Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product?

From viewing both the preliminary tasks and the final edits. You can highlight a considerable difference in the way they have been finalised. Firstly the most obvious difference is the time difference - We had a period of two weeks to complete our preliminary whereas with on our final edit (Violet) we had an series of months to work on our project. This can be reflected by the difference in editing, sound, camera and mise en scene;

Firstly, the mise en scene is not appalling however there are a lot of flaws that are now noticeable looking back on our clips. Despite being good improvisation for the moment, the yellow tape in the classroom is not realistic in the slightest way. To increase the efficiency of these clips I would put the yellow tape outside of the classroom. Another flaw is that (this is where teamwork matters - and will be mentioned further down) Charlene is supposed to be a police officer which does not show as she is dressed like no form of authority. Of course this is not nothing serious as it was only our preliminary however if this could be reshot I would suggest that she wore some more convincing clothes. One of the most disappointing feats of our preliminary is that Erika was not present when filming so I had to play two characters at once - the future improvements highlight themselves. I would assure that all of my group members were present next time to reduce the cons of our preliminary. Finally the blood in the clip is mediocre and nearly not convincing as none of it touched areas we were forbidden of getting dirty like clothes and the school carpet, so we had to place paper on the ground and pour blood onto it which led to it looking very silly.

As seen in these screenshots of our final edit you can note a considerable difference in the mise en scene. Firstly continuing from the last point above - the blood is far more convincing as we had more time to organise how we will use the blood. Ironically in the preliminary we were able to use fake blood whereas on the final edit we had to use food colouring which just accentuates the fact that an increase in time to plan can have major results on the final piece as the blood makeup looks far better than the preliminary. The attire also looked far more professional as many blogs have gone over - we purchased an exact outfit to use rather than improvising. Also like i mentioned before I refrained from cutting my hair which just shows that we dedicated far more time to it than the preliminary. As shown in the camera shots the locale is far more conventional for a psychological/supernatural thriller which further accentuates the point that timing is key!

The sound in our preliminary is something I did not like from the start. The sound accompanying me into the crime scene was fine until it was followed by an atrocious orchestral sound that just abolishes the mood of the preliminary. Further more the sound of the gunshots (which I thought was the only good thing about the sound) were not in sync with camera shots of the dead body illustrating poor editing and finally there was a really irritating sound of a ticking clock playing whilst dialogue was being passed which was more dominant making it look like a clown show as I played two characters and on top of that you can barley hear what I was saying. Violet on the other hand was a totally different story. Well composed music that fitted immaculately with what was going on. Like previously mentioned the chilly sound that accompanied the film worked really well as it made the creepiness stand out. Also, Poppy took the time to use intriguing samples to add onto the chilling feel such as a creaking chair and the sound of Erika saying "you did this" which just personally touches the audience and down to the final point again - timing and planning makes a huge difference with the final outcome.

Camera shots to be fair were not as bad as one would expect in a preliminary. We did replicate most of the shots in our final edit with a little more energy. As shown with the camera shots above. Two very similar shots use the feet and different angles to create different feels. With the preliminary shots, we feel as though we are ground level with the dead body which I would not change as it is effective. The final edit shot of the feet connoted a totally different feel, a paranormal being sitting before you as the background is so dark and the white dress stands out through the editing. The one flaw to the preliminary camera work was when Detective Moyles was entering the classroom and rather than using the tripod we used it freely as we were running short of time and was rushing which can and has just been justified- as we were running out of time. Another point adding to the highly mentioned TIME AND PLANNING!!!

The most important part of our final edit with out a doubt is the editing. The preliminary, we looked at the most simplistic features on Final Cut Pro such as using the razor tool to do light editing on specific clips in the form of the alternating the speed and simply making sure the clips flowed. This is the section were there is a huge difference in the preliminary and final edit. Firstly, nearly every shot underwent alterations from changing the hue to the speed to adding effects such as 'matte' which made the clips seem black and white as pictured above in the reminiscent stalking scenes. As we had far more time to complete the final edits we were able to experiment with a lot more features even on other software other that FCP such as Soundtrack Pro and Livetype Pro, where we imported our own taste of group 12 into the software and did not rely on the default set sounds and fonts. A notable feat to our opening credits and what we were remembered amongst groups was the fact that our credits changed colours to the violet by using cross dissolve and alternating the colour to the violet everyone saw which is my second favourite feature to our final edit. The first being the dadada effect where we used the razor tool to cut the clips into small millisecond segments and placing them next to each other and shortening them as they went along to make it end in a dramatic summary. Another feature we was complimented on as heard on the video in group 6...

Overall, not even having to be mentioned the main difference in the two is the massive increase in the time we had to develop and plan our final edit which is reflected from the two. With no further adieu here is the preliminary and our final edit;

From the response we received from the audience when viewing Violet in The Screen On The Green, I'd like to believe that we accomplished the goals we set to achieve such as gaining a visceral reaction from the audience which I can gladly say was achieved when Violet used false plateau to entice the audiences attention and appearing when least expected. The applause we received reflected the time and effort we put into making the thriller so we as a group were really pleased with the outcome. Despite this not being our initial target audience we gained positive feedback from the Media teachers outside of the cinema one even saying 'My personal favourite' so in theory our target audience enjoyed our thriller and people outside the target audience such as students enjoyed it, a much better outcome we could have expected.

With no further adieu here is some class feedback after watching the finished product;

Here is some clips of feedback;

The wordle below illustrates the most commonly used words in describing Violet - received by peers;

Finally as previously mentioned from blog 4&5. Here is the audience feedback from our film violet that I posted on Facebook yesterday. As illustrated we received a lot of feedback in a course of a couple of hours

The prelim in my eyes was more of a learning experience then a test of quality. Since then we have broadened our skills so much by experimenting with the technology. As we became more confident, we realised that we can do almost anything with the equipment given to us.

We have developed stylised editing since first doing the prelim and have learnt how to construct different things together. The jump cuts look so effective due to making them black and white, negative and embossing two clips over each other; all things we never knew how to do at the start of the course.

We have also learnt to take attention to detail with things like the mise en scene as it really did make a difference to the outcome of the opening. She looks scary, but we can still see an innocence in her. With the use of a simple dress, we have mastered the art of representation.

We have considered the location and how it will effect the film. I turned out to be very effective as some of the feedback complimented the eerie woods.

The sound used in the prelim was pretty simple, but we have made it more interesting by adding sound effects, like the broken chair and the forest sounds. We have showed that we can work with different.

All in all i think the work we have done looks not only more professional but more aesthetically pleasing. Through editing, we have taken seemingly boring clips and turned them into interesting and scary pieces. I personally think our work has developed from the basic setting an camera shots to unique angles and effective editing.

Thursday, 7 April 2011

Throughout the whole process we have learnt to use different technologies as we go along.

The JVC cameras.

The camera's that let us create the actual film aswell as the prelim. The cameras helped us achieve a proffesional quality film. They can be complicated to use, we had a lesson prepping us with how to use them.

Memory Cards.

They were essential in holding all our film work. They slot into the cameras and directly into the Apple Macs. Without them, we couldnt't store all of the work so far.

Video Drive.
Simila to the Memory cards, it stores all of our filmw work, bnut also, all of the editing, sounds and finished woirk we have constructed together,

Macs.
This is where we did all of the editing, aswell as using quicktime and other sodftwares. There were two types of macs, one with a splitscreen and one Apple mac.

SOFTWARE ﻿

(Livetype, soundtrack pro & final cut pro): This is where all of the clips are created into an opening. Each programme let us do a different thing to construct the film together. For example, create titles, sound and actually edit all of the clips together. We did run into oa few problems, but our teachers and the technicians at he college were very helpful.

Quicktime player.
Allows us to making screen recordings to show how we've worked.

Digital and Flick camera's.

Allowed us to record what we've done over the eyear, and record people's reactions to our film in a quicjk and easy way.

Blogger.

This very website that allows us to share our ideas and catch up on work we may have missed. It is so much more interesting then writing essays on paper, and it allows us to post videos and pictures.